Under the Bed
by RealityCheckBounced89
Summary: Underneath James Potter’s bed, Lily Evans finds dirty clothes, quidditch magazines, dusty textbooks, and the best eavesdropping opportunity of her life.


Title: Under the Bed

Summary: Underneath James Potter's bed, Lily Evans finds dirty clothes, quidditch magazines, dusty textbooks, and the best eavesdropping opportunity of her life.

Disclaimer: I don't own these characters or anything. Really. All I've got is a 20 dollar bill and some CDs.

A/N: I'm not going to describe Lily and James' whole situation to you, because you obviously already know that.

* * *

Lily Evans was not snooping around in James Potter's room. Of course she wasn't. That would imply that she had some sort of interest in him. 

Which she absolutely did not.

So you might ask yourself, why exactly was she hidden under his bed?

The answer was quite simple, really. She was looking for him.

Of course, underneath his bed may not be the best place to look, but perhaps we should start at the beginning of the story...

* * *

Lily and James were Head Girl and Boy. One Saturday afternoon, she was looking for him to schedule the next prefects meeting. Having no luck elsewhere, she went up to the dormitory he shared with his three best friends. 

Once up there, she did not find James. She did, however, find the most disgustingly unkempt room in the entire castle.

Of the four bed spaces, only one of the areas looked remotely clean. She assumed this one had to be Remus'. (She would have been shocked to find that the bed actually belonged to Sirius).

As she was wandering around, she crouched down to look under the nearest bed. _'This has to be James'_ she thought, distastefully eyeing the old quidditch magazines and dirty clothes.

Suddenly, she heard footseps and voices approaching. Panicking, she slid herself underneath the bed, nearly knocking over a stack of textbooks that had acquired a thin layer of dust.

Peter Pettigrew walked into the room first, closely followed by Sirius Black, Remus Lupin, and James Potter himself.

"I'm bored," Sirius said.

"Shocking," she heard Remus reply dryly.

"Well if I didn't have to listen to Prongs complain about Evans all the time..."

At the mention of her name, Lily started to listen more intently.

"Shut up!" James said.

"Why don't we just try and _help_ James so he stops complaining," Peter suggested.

"Well I hope one of you guys can think of something, cause I've run out of ideas. I don't know what to do," James said sorrowfully.

The next voice to speak was Remus'. "You could try just telling her how you feel."

"Yeah, that'll work. 'Hey Lily, I just thought you should know that I'm completely in love with you. Wanna go to Hogsmeade this weekend?'"

It was all Lily could do to keep herself from gasping at this. He couldn't be in love with her! It wasn't possible!

"Well if you've tried everything else..." Peter said, sitting down on his bed.

James sighed. "Maybe I should just give up."

Sirius piped in, "You say that all the time, and every time you just go right back to being obsessed with her."

"I'm not obsessed!"

Somebody (Lily thought it was either Sirius or Remus) snorted at that, trying to contain his laughter and failing miserably. "Of course not, mate," Sirius said, obviously being sarcastic.

"He could try to make her jealous by dating someone else," Peter suggested. Lily was a bit concerned; not only because they were discussing her, but because Sirius had just moved closer to her hiding spot.

"Yeah, but for that to work, she'd have to actually like him first," Remus pointed out.

"True," Peter answered. "Well, we could put her in a life-threatening situation, and then James could save her."

"I don't think James would go for that."

"I'm right here! You don't have to talk about me like I'm not in the room," James said, clearly frustrated by the entire conversation. "What do you think, Padfoot?"

Sirius, who had been uncharacteristically quiet for some time, looked up at the sound of his nickname. "Hm? I don't know, man. We've had this conversation a thousand times."

"Look, we're getting nowhere. I think you need to take your mind off this for a while. Let's go outside."

"Yeah, sure." They headed out the door, and James stopped. "Sirius, you coming?"

"Yeah, hang on. I'll meet you guys in a minute." James left, while Lily held her breath. She just needed to wait until Sirius left, and she'd be home free.

Sirius strode across the room and shut the door.

"Alright Lily, you can come out now!" he shouted. She cursed under her breath and slid out from under the bed.

Standing up and brushing herself off, she tried to salvage as much of her dignity as she could. "How did you know it was me under there?"

"We're the Marauders. We make a living out of sneaking around. Did you really think you could fool us?"

"Three out of four isn't bad."

"Can I ask why, exactly, you were hiding under there?" he asked, a look of slight amusement playing across his handsome face.

"Well, I was looking for James..." she started, a faint blush appearing on her cheeks.

"Under his bed? That's probably not the best place to start."

"Well, I was looking in here, but I got distracted when I saw what a pigsty this place is. Then I heard you guys coming, and, I... I panicked," she said, feeling ridiculous even as she related the whole story.

"Right, well, since you were under there, I'm going to assume that you're little eavesdropping self heard our entire conversation."

"I was _not_ eavesdropping!" she said indignantly. He merely raised an eyebrow at her.

A moment later she asked, "Was it true?"

"Was what true?"

"What he said. About me?"

Sirius paused. "What do you think?"

"Honestly? I don't know what to think."

He nodded. "It was true. All of it."

Lily thought about this for a second before making up her mind. "Do you know where James is?"

Sirius smiled. "They said they were going outside. Check the beech tree."

"Thanks."

* * *

"James Potter!" Lily shouted, then spotted him sitting with two of his fellow Marauders by their favorite beech tree. 

"Uh-oh. What did you do this time?" Peter asked.

"I honestly have no idea," he answered, watching Lily warily as she marched purposely towards them.

"Lily, whatever it is, I didn't do it!"

"You moron. I need to talk to you."

"What about?"

"Come here," she said, and he quickly obeyed. That was one of the things she liked about James' obsession with her: he was generally willing to do her bidding.

Remus and Peter were trying hard to listen without seeming interested as James followed Lily a few feet away from them.

"What do you need?"

"Well, we need to schedule the next prefects meeting," she said.

"Oh. Well, I think Ravenclaw's got quidditch tryouts on Monday and Tuesday, and we've got the pitch Wednesday, but Thursday should be fine."

"Oh. Okay then, I'll talk to Professor McGonagall." She stood there for a few more seconds.

"Was there something else?" James asked.

"Um..." She paused, uncertain, and said, "There's a Hogsmeade weekend next week."

"Yeah, there is." _Don't ask her out, don't ask her out, you know she hates that_, James thought to himself.

"Would you like to go with me?"

_Don't ask her out, don't ask_... _What?_ "Huh?"

She took a deep breath and said, "Would you like to go to Hogsmeade with me?"

"Yes," he answered before he could think about it. "Wait, are _you_ really asking_ me_, James Potter, to go to Hogsmeade with you? Like, on a date?"

She nodded. "So you'll go?"

"Of course I'll go, I've only wanted to do this since..." he trailed off, realizing how very uncool he must sound. "Uh, I'll pick you up at 11?"

She smiled. "Sounds great. See you later."

Lily walked away and James turned around, looking at his friends while in a daze.

Peter had a look of confusion on his face. "Did that _really _just happen?"

"I told you going outside was a good idea," Remus said.

* * *

A/N: I should so be doing homework right now, but I finished this instead. I'm such a procrastinator. It's kind of crappy, but I liked the premise. Hope you liked it. 


End file.
